Battlefield: Vietnam Interview

FZ: What are the biggest changes since BF1942 with regards to gameplay?

AJ Marini: It's probably the flags. In BF1942, when someone entered the flag zone, the flag became neutral almost immediately. Then it took a certain amount of time for it to be captured by the opposing team. That took away a strategic element. You couldn't really defend the flag. If you had ten guys defending the flag, and one enemy came into the zone, it was neutralized. What we've done with BF:Vietnam is that we've let the player know how much time it takes to capture the flag. But that time can be affected by the amount of players that are there, so if you go with one person it may take you 30 seconds, if you go with two it may take you 15, with three it may take you 10, and so on. The more men you use to attack the flag, the faster you can capture it.

When it comes to defense, you can have the same effect. If you have one man defending, he cancels one man on the other team. You've really got to have numbers at every flag. So, to take a flag with three guys, you'd have to make sure there's at most two, you know, because if there are two or more, you're not going to capture that flag. So it's really critical that you strategize a bit more, either make sure there's no one there, or that you go in with a concentrated force. That's the biggest thing, I think it will help to keep people together because it reinforces the idea of being together as a team because you can capture the flag faster as a team, and you have a better chance of capturing the flag because you have more guys to help eliminate the enemies.